D-Day Landings- Easily Done Better?

[BFritz21]

(09-07-2023, 04:31 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: Well, in total the Allies used roughly 5,000 landing vessels to transport 150k-160k troops to France. The total casualties for all included was around 10,300, with ~4k of those being deaths, which was quite impressive. The Allies had long been involved in a deception plot to make the Nazis believe that they were going to invade in a different area of France. Due to this, the Nazi forces were re-positioned to that particular area and Normandy was "lightly defended". It is hard to say how many vessels landed on the beach, but this link describes it as "few". There were strong currents and quite a bit of confusion when the landing commenced. The first photo in this article gives an idea of what many of the soldiers were tasked with once the bay doors dropped on their boats. 

I didn't ever realize that the Canadians had accomplished anything ever in terms of the military, but they apparently they played a HUGE role in capturing one of the beaches (Juno, if I remember correctly).

How they broke the German code and kept them in the dark for so long is so damn impressive in itself.

I feel like all this history is getting lost in a generation where (most) kids only care about things like TikTok and Facebook. 

I was supposed to read two books for English class the summer before the wreck and write papers on them, which I just browsed them and threw together bullshit papers, but I read a few books on WW2 and other wars.

(09-07-2023, 04:54 PM)pally Wrote: The landings started at 6:30 AM.  Daylight was required because of the topography of the beaches and the obstacles the Germans had built into the coastline.  They also needed daylight for the bombardments which started about an hour before the landings could see what they were shooting at.
They timed the landings between the tides so there was enough depth for the landing crafts but not too much.  They had a window of June 5, 6, or 7 that had the combined conditions of the proper moon phase and tide phase at the same time.  They lost the 5th due to the weather.  The 6th had a window that was going to close before the 7th so the 6th it was.  There was too much of a risk that the Germans would find out the invasion plans if they postponed until July.

There were close to 7000 naval vessels used in the invasion.  Of that, about 4100 were landing craft.   The LCs couldn't go all the way to the beach because they got caught up in strong currents, rough seas, and the barriers placed in the sea by the Germans.  As a result, hundreds of men drowned because the the current, the depth of water they stepped out into, and the weight of their packs/equipment.  LCs were basically tin cans.  They didn't have a lot of power and really offered only minimal protection. They unload to the front because it's faster and closer to the objective to unload that way.  Unloading from the rear would place them in deeper water and force them to change directions in the current (with heavy packs)

So many things, like the tides, went wrong on D-Day that it's hard to figure out why it was successful.

I thought I saw somewhere where the moon would have been bright enough to carry out the invasions at night. I know it's not nearly as bright as the sun, but with all the explosions and things going on at the beaches, I wonder if that could have been bright enough.

A new piece of information I just found out is that Hitler went to bed late the night before and ordered his staff not to wake him up. When he finally woke up, he was excited that the invasion was happening because he thought there was no way it would succeed and figured it would crush the Allies armies and destroy their hope:

Quote:When the D-Day forces landed, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was asleep. 

None of his generals dared order reinforcements without his permission, and no-one dared wake him.
Crucial hours were lost in the battle to hold Normandy. 
When Hitler did finally wake up, at around 10am, he was excited at news of the invasion - he thought Germany would easily defeat the Allies.

That's incredible!

Who knows if waking Hitler would have stopped the invasion, but Hitler was a pretty damn good military strategist, so who knows, because he could have also dispatched more troops, like the SS.

THANKS FOR THE INFO! 

This is incredible!

(09-07-2023, 04:54 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: This part here impresses me. We are talking 1944:

Gonna have to watch that movie.

I'm definitely going to have to watch that!

I gotta go blow kisses to cars but keep the responses coming!